Rain
by Miss Kitty Fantastica
Summary: Clary and Jace set out to have a picnic date in the park. Fluff. Post-CoG, Pre-CoFA. First Fanfic I've ever written, reviews appreciated! .


It was supposed to be a nice afternoon in the park. Jace and Clary had packed a picnic basket earlier that afternoon, declining Izzy's offer to help cook for their lunch date. Keeping Izzy far away from the kitchen was, as Jace had explained a few weeks earlier, one of the many unofficial rules of the Institute. These rules seemed to be infinite in number and ranged from serious (don't leave your fellow Nephilim behind in a fight) to silly (if you pull on Church's tail, you have to deal with the consequences on your own). They were part of an ongoing list that Alec, Izzy and Jace had started when they were just kids playing hide and go seek in the Institute's ancient corridors. Now that Clary was an official member of the group, they made sure to point out the rules to her whenever they got the chance, usually when she unknowingly broke one. Sometimes Clary feigned annoyance at their teasing, but in truth she loved these moments; they made Clary feel that she belonged in their group, like she was a real Shadowhunter.

Well, _almost_ a real Shadowhunter. While Clary knew had stronger rune creation powers than anyone, including the centuries-old Magnus Bane, had ever seen, she was still completely untrained. What made it worse was that Jace refused to train her. Clary could have asked Maryse to hire a new trainer and Izzy had offered to show her techniques, but they weren't Jace. And Clary needed Jace, not just as her boyfriend, but as her trainer too.

That was what brought their nice picnic in the park from a romantic lunch to an all-out argument.

"I have no idea why you won't train me!" Clary shouted, not caring about the looks they were receiving from the other park goers. "I am a Shadowhunter now. I need to be able to protect myself."

"I don't want you to get hurt," Jace said sternly.

"I'm not some delicate thing," Clary said. "I'm stronger than you give me credit for, Jace. It's annoying how you treat me like some dainty little—"

"That's not what I meant," Jace said. But Clary never knew what Jace meant, because at that very moment a tail like barbed wire moved into Jace's peripheral vision. Jace leapt in front of Clary, stretching one arm in front of her like a barrier, and yelled to her to move away from the Ravener Demons.

Clary felt her stomach tighten as she watched the demons leap towards Jace. Almost reflexively, Clary reached into her boot to produce a seraph blade. She whispered to it _Cassiel_ and tightened her fingers around the handle. The weapon felt sure in her hand.

Clary was not running away to let her boyfriend fight alone, she told herself. She was not some damsel in distress. She was a Shadowhunter. She was a fighter. She was meant to do this.

She leapt from behind Jace to the space right beside him, taking on a demon the moment before it was about to clamp on his arms with its razor teeth. With two quick slices of her blade, the demon was on the ground. Jace cast a disapproving glance her way, but turned back quickly to fight the rest of the gang of demons in front of him. He had already taken down three, leaving only three more demons to defeat for the two Shadowhunters.

Clary focused on the demon in front of her. Her arms seemed to know what to do, moving naturally and swiftly. The demon was down in a matter of moments. The seraph blade, however, got stuck in the demon's tough skin. She pulled at it with both hands, like Arthur unearthing Excalibur, but it was no use. The blade was not going to be able to help her now. She looked over at Jace, who was on the ground, his own seraph blade just out of his reach. He stretched his arm to grab it, but Clary could see he would never get to it before the demon closed in on him. Her heart began to fall to the ground and at that moment there was only one thought going through her mind, her body, her veins: save Jace.

Clary quickly glanced around the picnic blanket: cheese sandwiches, pasta salad, plastic spoons. None of this would help. Then she saw it: the umbrella. Thank the angel the weather forecast had predicted rain, she thought.

Taking the dainty umbrella in her hands, Clary charged the demon that was hovering over Jace. As she did, the umbrella opened to reveal bladed edges that sent to demon flat on its back. It was dead. It was over. They had won. With the dead demons scattered around them, Clary ran over to Jace and put her hand on his cheek. "Are you okay?" she asked him.

"My ego is a bit bruised," he replied, already easing up to stand again. "I don't know how they got the best of me like that…some of them must have had super strength of some sort. We'll need to tell Maryse." Now standing, he wrapped his arms around Clary and pulled her in close to him, resting his chin on the top of her head. "What about you, Clary? I can't believe you jumped into the fight like that. If anything would have happened to you…" Jace let his thought trail off and he trailed his fingers down her arms to take hold of her hand. Together they walked towards a park bench. Clary followed and sat next to him, keeping the umbrella in one hand while resting the other right above his knee. She gave it a slight squeeze and he turned to look at her.

"You need to stop worrying about that, Jace," she said. "You can't protect me from everything, you know. You don't need to. I'm perfectly able to take care of myself."

"I know," Jace said. "Especially after I get a chance to train you properly." His smile lit up mischievously.

"Do you mean that?" Clary said excitedly. "You'll train me?"

"After what you did back there, I'd be stupid not to," Jace said. "And everyone knows I'm not stupid." Clary rolled her eyes at his self-flattery, but he continued. "I'm sorry for not being willing to train you before it's just…I love you so much, you know that, right?" Clary nodded. She knew. "If I imagine something happening to you, it's like imagining being ripped at my seams. I couldn't stand it, wouldn't be able to hold myself together. But after seeing you back there, I know that I can't shield you from all this. This is all a part of who you are now, just as it's a part of me. Just as you're a part of me." He leaned down to place a light kiss on her forehead.

"Jace Lightwood, somewhere in that long speech did you just admit that I saved your ass back there?" Clary asked.

"Hardly," Jace replied teasingly. "I had it totally under control. I just let you get in a few good seraph blade swipes to make you feel better." He reached over and took her chin in his hand and kissed her for a long moment. It was a sweet kiss, simple and calm, like a moment frozen in time. When they broke apart, Jace looked at Clary skeptically for a moment. "Where in the world did you find that umbrella, by the way? I can hardly believe that was in the accessories rack at Clarie's."

"Oh, I found it at the Institute, in the hall closet next to the weapons room," Clary replied. "It looked like no one had used it in ages, it's probably really old. But it said it might rain today and I felt like it was better safe than- "

As if on cue, a loud clap of thunder cracked through the sky and buckets of rain began to fall on the two young Shadowhunters. Giving Jace a quick wink, Clary reached over and opened the parasol, the blades still hanging off the ends of the awning. She offered Jace place under it to and he moved closer to her on the bench to get under its reach.

"This is how it should be," Clary said. "You and me, protecting one another. From the rain, from whatever." Jace's arm looped around Clary's waist and pulled her in closer to him, his touch warm enough that the cool air of the storm went unnoticed. He moved his face to hers so that their foreheads were touching, gold eyes meeting green.

"You and me," he said. "Always." Then he leaned again to Clary and kissed her as the rainstorm continued on around them.


End file.
